Boehner Back In New York

Next year’s election cycle is already picking up thanks to the scrutiny this week on the latest batch of federal campaign finance filings released this week.

In a sign that we’re inching back into an even-numbered year’s political season, House Speaker John Boehner is making a fundraising trip to New York — as far as I can tell his first of the year — to help out Rep. Chris Collins.

Boehner will headline the Aug. 7 event in Lakeview for Collins, a freshman member and ex-Erie County executive who unseated Democratic Rep. Kathy Hochul in a blood-red House district last year.

Tickets for event run as high as $2,000, which gets donors a keepsake photo with the speaker.

The Ohio Republican, of course, fundraised and stumped across upstate New York last year at a break-neck pace, making appearances for GOP candidates Maggie Brooks, Matt Doheny, Chris Gibson and Nan Hayworth.

At this point, Collins is not on the short list of targeted seats for the DCCC, which believes they have a real shot again at knocking off Staten Island’s Michael Grimm and Gibson, who faces a challenge from venture capitalist Sean Eldridge (judging by how the NRCC has been going after Eldridge’s wealth in the rural Hudson Valley district, both parties must think they have a fight on their hands).

Hayworth, who lost to Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney last year, is also sliding back into politics, quietly writing herself a $50,000 check to her campaign.

Maloney’s campaign operation seized on that news by sending out a fundraising alert to voters.

“This news makes one thing obvious to me: we have to start battling now or they’re going to have too much time to spread their lies and distortions,” Maloney wrote in the appeal.